BSA Session: Shakespeare's Next Editors (abstracts by 31 May 2009)

full name / name of organization:

British Shakespeare Association

contact email:

mpangall@english.umass.edu

Though the activity of editing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries was for over two hundred years the principle scholarly method for investigating these works, many younger scholars today confront an academic establishment that relegates editing, bibliography, and text studies to secondary or peripheral positions in graduate, doctoral, and junior faculty programs. This is particularly unfortunate given the exponential increase in innovative technologies, methodologies, and theories that encourage fresh approaches to essential questions about these plays.

This session seeks papers from, for, or about the next generation of Shakespeare editors and that explore particular approaches, theories, or case studies in the editorial study and representation of early modern dramatic texts. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the use of new digital technologies in editing, "post-Theory" philosophies in the construction of edited works, the place of editorial activities in modern theatrical contexts, and the pedagogical application of editorial insights as teaching tools in the twenty-first century classroom.